… When the players launched their boycott two days later, Claeys tweeted: “Have never been more proud of our kids. I respect their rights & support their effort to make a better world!”

Asked what impact that tweet had on his decision, Coyle said, “This isn’t about one specific incident. … I think the events over the past few weeks underscored the concerns and some of the things I’ve been seeing in that program.”

Coyle pledged a better image for Gophers athletics when he took office June 1. For the past year, the department’s troubles have often overshadowed sports success.

The men’s basketball team suspended three players last spring when a sex video was posted to a player’s social media account. Another player was suspended this summer while the university investigated a sexual assault allegation. A drug problem permeated the wrestling program, resulting in the firing of a longtime coach. The year before, Coyle’s predecessor, Norwood Teague, resigned amid sexual harassment allegations.

“We have teams winning the Big Ten Conference championships, teams going to the Final Four, and we are not talking about those things,” Coyle said.

“What I am trying to do is to build a culture of excellence. I’m trying to build a department,” he added.

He wants to find a head coach who “embraces what Minnesota is all about”. Presumably, that involves using Twitter more responsibly.

Count me as one who’d be quite happy to never see a tweet again. Something tells me Claeys will land on his feet. If we fired every coach who had an example of poor judgement, we’d soon be out of coaches. Same goes for A.D.s.

I haven’t followed this very closely. Perhaps the players were the one’s who showed proper judgement. They fought what they first believed to be unfair treatment. Then they changed their stance after the administration deigned to share the facts. If the administration had been honest and open initially, none of this ship would’ve likely happened.

The only surprising thing to me was that he got to coach the bowl game at all. He should have been fired five minutes after the tweet. This wasn’t simply poor judgement. This was a coach who tweeted out his support for the boycott only minutes after the athletic department issued a statement, with the coach’s name attached, suspending the players.

+1 Guess he misunderstood what his contractual job responsibilities were. If he wasn’t involved in a decision concerning the players he was responsible for, and objected to the actions of the university, he was high enough to voice his concerns to the chain of command (AD, Prez, etc.) to express his displeasure privately. Following that, he could resign if he felt strongly enough to take a stand. Now let’s see if the players want to revolt again to support him. Actions have consequences, the university had little choice at this point.

LOL How is the AD ANY of those things? The coach merely went against his job responsibilities and undermined his bosses, what should they do, look the other way and pretend they didn’t see that? That is fine if you are a dishwasher at McDonalds, you have nothing to risk so protest anything you want. Being an uniformed fool permits you to be stupid, but a highly paid middle manager should have better sense. What manager would tolerate that type of thinking/action? Coach should have been fired for stupidity alone, much less taking his thinking public. Nothing self righteous or arrogant about it, AD just did his job. AD should have been fired had he done nothing about it.

The university caused all this by releasing the report and suspending 10 players before the bowl game. The university could easily have waited 2 more weeks to take the action it took regarding the players. The HC was put in an untenable position. If he didn’t support the players he likely would have lost the team right before the bowl. Chalk up another victim of political correctness. There is a reason why certain schools end up on the ash heap of CFB–you are watching it happen now to Minnesota.

yeah..this AD fired a guy he didnt hire so he could make the football hire. Sounds familiar. I know some folks want it to be about principles, or strength or some other non-sense, but this was the time honor tradition of I didnt hire you so I am going to fire you.

Coach saying he supports a players right to protest is about as basic as you can get. Who doesnt support someone’s right to protest? please dont answer that.

Quote Of The Day

“He had some good pointers,” Smart said about Saban’s advice on dealing with the quarterback battle. “But I’ll keep that between he and I. I’m always looking for good advice especially dealing with the quarterback situation.” — Dawgs247, 5/16/18